Various vehicle types have sliding doors for allowing entry and egress of passengers, parcels and other items to be hauled or transported. Sliding doors, which are commonly used on vans, offer the advantage of allowing wider access to a vehicle entrance space than a conventional hinge mounted door and, perhaps more importantly, do not extend nearly as far into the adjacent area around the vehicle thus decreasing the number and severity of door induced dents and dings.
An automotive sliding door typically has two or three sets of rollers mounted within corresponding longitudinally oriented tracks. For example, an upper track is located above the sliding door entrance way, a center track is located between the rear quarter panel and the inside rear trim panel, and a lower track is situated below the entrance way. As the door is unlatched and pushed rearward, it is routed by the tracks slighty outward of the vehicle exterior and slides adjacent to the rear quarter panel.
Conventional vehicle design practice is to place the sliding door on the side of the vehicle opposite the driver's side, and to locate a filler pipe access lid on the driver's side rear quarter panel. Such a design avoids a collision between the sliding door and the filler pipe access lid if the access lid is open for refueling and the sliding door is subsequently opened.
Some vehicles, however, may have the sliding door and the access lid on the same side of the vehicle, or may have sliding doors on both sides of the vehicle. In either case, the potentiality exists for the aforementioned collision between the sliding door and the access lid.
One mechanism for preventing such an undesirable collision is shown in Japanese patent 56-28019, where the access lid 6 is supported by inner fold-out lids 7 and 8 which are pulled outward via finger opening 9. Lid 6 serves as a stop to prevent door 1 from disrupting a fuel nozzle inserted into the filler pipe. A drawback of this approach is that door 1 will cause chipping, nicking, and denting of lid 6 upon collisiion therewith thus degrading vehicle external appearance.
Another mechanism for preventing the above described problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,620,744 (Yui, et al.) wherein the mechanism has a pivoted fuel lid 17, a lever 23, a second lever 29 actuated by a rod 24, and a stop 12 carried by a sliding door 11. When the lid is open, the lever is positioned against the stop to prevent the door from sliding and contacting the lid when the fuel tank is being filled. This mechanism, however, requires opening the fuel filler lid and then pulling the lever to lock-out the sliding door, an inconvenient extra step. In addition, the mechanism only allows the door to open a short way and also requires many parts which increase both manufacturing expense and assembly time.